It is about time this catch and release immigration policy has been stopped.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump signed a memorandum on Friday ordering the end of a policy, known as “catch and release,” in which illegal immigrants are released from detention while awaiting a court hearing on their status.

As part of the memo, Trump asked Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to produce a list of military facilities that could be used to detain illegal immigrants.

WELLINGTON, Nov 14 (Reuters) – A powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake and a series of aftershocks shook New Zealand in the early hours of Monday, generating a tsunami and sending thousands of people fleeing for higher ground.

Emergency response teams were dispatched by helicopter to the region that bore the epicentre of the quake, some 91 km (57 miles) north-northeast of Christchurch in the South Island, amid reports of injuries and collapsed buildings. There were no immediate reports of deaths.

Power was out and phone lines down in many areas of the country, roads were blocked by landslips and the Civil Defence Ministry warned that waves of up to five metres (yards) remained a risk for several hours.

“The first waves have arrived but we know that it is too early to say what the impact has been,” said Sarah Stuart-Black, national controller at the Ministry of Civil Defence. “Our concern is what is coming. Future waves are coming that may be bigger than what has come before.”

The first tremor, just 15 kms deep, struck the island nation just after midnight, jolting many from their sleep and raising memories of the 6.3 magnitude Christchurch quake in 2011, which killed 185 people. New Zealand’s Geonet measured Monday’s quake at magnitude 7.5.

New Zealand lies in the seismically active “Ring of Fire”, a 40,000 kilometre arc of volcanoes and oceanic trenches that partly encircles the Pacific Ocean. Around 90 percent of the world’s earthquakes occur within this region.

St. John Ambulance said it was sending helicopters carrying medical and rescue personnel to the coastal tourist town of Kaikoura. It is completely cut off and officials said there are reports of a collapsed building.

“There are some reports of casualties but the picture will be clearer as day breaks,” Acting Civil Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee said.

In Wellington, there was gridlock on the roads to Mount Victoria, a hill with a lookout over the low-lying coastal city, as residents headed for higher ground.

“I’m just sort of parked by the side of the road and I think people are trying to go to sleep the same as I am,” Wellington resident Howard Warner told Reuters after evacuating his seaside house.

Richard Maclean, a spokesman for the Wellington City Council, said there was structural damage to several buildings. Residents were advised to stay away from the central business district on Monday and the train network was closed for checks. Wellington international airport, however, was expected to open as usual on Monday.

In Christchurh, where tsunami sirens continued intermittently, three evacuation centres were accepting residents. Police have set up roadblocks to prevent people from returning to lower-lying coastal areas.

Pictures shared on social media showed buckled roads, smashed glass and goods toppled from shelves in shops in Wellington and the upper South Island.

“The whole house rolled like a serpent and some things smashed, the power went out,” a woman, who gave her name as Elizabeth, told Radio New Zealand from her home in Takaka, near the top of the South Island.

There was initial confusion when emergency services first said there was no tsunami threat.

Christchurch Civil Defence Controller John Mackie said that while the earthquake was centred inland, the fault line extended offshore for a considerable distance. That meant that seismic activity could cause movement out at sea, leading to a tsunami.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s lead over Republican rival Donald Trump narrowed to less than 3 percentage points, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll released on Friday, down from nearly eight points on Monday.

About 42 percent of likely voters favored Clinton, to Trump’s 39 percent, according to the July 31-Aug. 4 online poll of 1,154 likely voters. The poll had a credibility interval of plus or minus 3 percentage points, meaning that the results suggest the race is roughly even.

Among registered voters over the same period, Clinton held a lead of five percentage points, down from eight percentage points on Monday, according to the poll.

The reasons behind the shift were unclear.

Clinton had pulled well ahead of Trump on the heels of the Democratic National Convention last week, where she became the first woman to accept the U.S. presidential nomination from a major political party.

Since then, Trump has engaged in a days-long feud with the family of an American soldier killed in Iraq and squabbled with the Republican leadership over his comments and leadership turmoil within his campaign.

Trump, in recent days, however, has sought to refocus. On Friday he announced his economic policy advisory team, said he would deliver an economic policy speech early next week, and was expected to endorse U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan, the top U.S. elected Republican, who is seeking his 10th term in Congress.

An average of polls aggregated by Real Clear Politics showed Clinton ahead of Trump by 6.8 percentage points on Friday, up from 3.9 on Aug. 1.

The Iraq environment ministry says the radioactive material was stolen, I personally say it was sold to ISIS.

Iraq is searching for “highly dangerous” radioactive material stolen last year, according to an environment ministry document and seven security, environmental and provincial officials who fear it could be used as a weapon if acquired by Islamic State.

The material, stored in a protective case the size of a laptop computer, went missing in November from a storage facility near the southern city of Basra belonging to U.S. oilfield services company Weatherford (WFT.N), the document obtained by Reuters showed and officials confirmed.

A spokesman for Iraq’s environment ministry said he could not discuss the issue, citing national security concerns. A Weatherford spokesman in Iraq declined to comment, and the company’s Houston headquarters did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

The material, which uses gamma rays to test flaws in materials used for oil and gas pipelines in a process called industrial gamma radiography, is owned by Istanbul-based SGS Turkey, according to the document and officials.

An SGS official in Iraq declined to comment and referred Reuters to its Turkish headquarters, which did not respond to phone calls.

The document, dated Nov. 30 and addressed to the ministry’s Centre for Prevention of Radiation, describes “the theft of a highly dangerous radioactive source of Ir-192 with highly radioactive activity belonging to SGS from a depot belonging to Weatherford in the Rafidhia area of Basra province”.

A senior environment ministry official based in Basra, who declined to be named as he is not authorized to speak publicly, told Reuters the device contained up to 10 grams (0.35 ounces) of Ir-192 “capsules”, a radioactive isotope of iridium also used to treat cancer.

The material is classed as a Category 2 radioactive source by the International Atomic Energy Agency, meaning if not managed properly it could cause permanent injury to a person in close proximity to it for minutes or hours, and could be fatal to someone exposed for a period of hours to days.

How harmful exposure can be is determined by a number of factors such as the material’s strength and age, which Reuters could not immediately determine. The ministry document said it posed a risk of bodily and environmental harm as well as a national security threat.

DIRTY BOMB FEAR

Large quantities of Ir-192 have gone missing before in the United States, Britain and other countries, stoking fears among security officials that it could be used to make a dirty bomb.

A dirty bomb combines nuclear material with conventional explosives to contaminate an area with radiation, in contrast to a nuclear weapon, which uses nuclear fission to trigger a vastly more powerful blast.

“We are afraid the radioactive element will fall into the hands of Daesh,” said a senior security official with knowledge of the theft, using an Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

“They could simply attach it to explosives to make a dirty bomb,” said the official, who works at the interior ministry and spoke on condition of anonymity as he is also not authorized to speak publicly.

There was no indication the material had come into the possession of Islamic State, which seized territory in Iraq and Syria in 2014 but does not control areas near Basra.

The security official, based in Baghdad, told Reuters there were no immediate suspects for the theft. But the official said the initial investigation suggested the perpetrators had specific knowledge of the material and the facility: “No broken locks, no smashed doors and no evidence of forced entry,” he said.

An operations manager for Iraqi security firm Taiz, which was contracted to protect the facility, declined to comment, citing instructions from Iraqi security authorities.

A spokesman for Basra operations command, responsible for security in Basra province, said army, police and intelligence forces were working “day and night” to locate the material.

The army and police have responsibility for security in the country’s south, where Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias and criminal gangs also operate.

POLLUTION RISK

Iraqi forces are battling Islamic State in the country’s north and west, backed by a U.S.-led coalition. The militant group has been accused of using chemical weapons on more than one occasion over the past few years.

The closest area fully controlled by Islamic State is more than 500 km (300 miles) north of Basra in the western province of Anbar. The Sunni militants control no territory in the predominantly Shi’ite southern provinces but have claimed bomb attacks there, including one that killed 10 people in October in the district where the Weatherford facility is located.

Besides the risk of a dirty bomb, the radioactive material could cause harm simply by being left exposed in a public place for several days, said David Albright, a physicist and president of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security.

“If they left it in some crowded place, that would be more of the risk. If they kept it together but without shielding,” he said. “Certainly it’s not insignificant. You could cause some panic with this. They would want to get this back.”

The senior environmental official said authorities were worried that whoever stole the material would mishandle it, leading to radioactive pollution of “catastrophic proportions”.

A second senior environment ministry official, also based in Basra, said counter-radiation teams had begun inspecting oil sites, scrap yards and border crossings to locate the device after an emergency task force raised the alarm on Nov. 13.

Two Basra provincial government officials said they were directed on Nov. 25 to coordinate with local hospitals. “We instructed hospitals in Basra to be alert to any burn cases caused by radioactivity and inform security forces immediately,” said one.

The union thugs are hoping the DemocRats they own in the Senate will help force Volkswagen to unionize.

Bob King and the United Auto Workers have decided to pull their objections to the results of the Volkswagen union vote at the Tennessee plant.

“The United Auto Workers union on Monday said it was withdrawing its objection claiming undue outside political interference in the result of a February election it lost among workers at the Volkswagen AG plant in Tennessee,” reports Reuters. “UAW President Bob King, in a statement issued by the union on Monday, said the process of objecting to the National Labor Relations Board could have dragged on for months if not years.”

But don’t celebrate quite so quickly. Because the UAW isn’t so much withdrawing their complaint as they are changing venue. King and company have decided to appeal to Congress, instead of going through the grievance process at the NLRB.

If you’re like me, this should make you very suspicious.

After all, this is likely the most radical NLRB we’ve had in the history of our country. This is the National Labor Relations Board that decided that NCAA athletes are employees of their respective universities, and thus should be allowed to unionize.

I mean how much more commie can you get than attacking college football and college basketball?

Go Big Red! doesn’t mean what it used to.

When the UAW says that they are going to appeal to Congress, they really mean the United States Senate, because the Republicans, who would not be very sympathetic, control the House.

So if United Auto Workers believe that the National Labor Relations Board won’t give them a better deal than the United States Senate will, it bears looking at the case they’ll make.

At issue is whether the state of Tennessee offered $300 million worth of incentives– cash and cash equivalents– to Volkswagen on the condition that the Volkswagen workers rejected union overtures to organize.

A local Tennessee station, NewsChannel5.com, has published a dozen documents that show that the state of Tennessee offered incentives to Volkswagen, provided that the company promised to create additional jobs in the state. That those additional jobs were dependent upon workers rejecting the union is kind of a big “Duh.”

The UAW and its wholly-owned subsidiary, the Democrat party, will try to make the case that the Volkswagen deal was just a case of crony capitalism at the expense of ordinary workers.

And all they need to make the case is a few moderate, centrist Republicans, who are willing to do a little horse trading to get, for example, perhaps a bigger defense budget or a more belligerent stand on foreign-policy.

The Obama administration has made a specialty out of cronyism, graft and corruption along the blueprints of Chicago.

But the real danger to our Republic is not from Obama following the Chicago Way, it’s if he follows the Illinois “combine.”

The “combine” controls the state with Republicans outside of Cook County, and Democrats inside of Cook County. And they divide the spoils. It’s a plague that comes from both houses, not just Democrats.

And there are many in the corridors of Washington DC power who believe, really truly believe, that not only is this the best way to govern, but that it’s the only way to govern.

These are the people who believe that Obama’s only real sin is not negotiating in good faith. These are the people who believe that there’s nothing wrong with Obamacare that a little compromise from the Democrats can’t fix.

And when I say fix, I mean fix.

Because the UAW has said that the fight in the South for autoworkers is a win or die proposition. Everything is on the line for them.

Their move from the National Labor Relations Board to the United States Senate would only make sense if: 1) They were nuts; or 2) The fix were already in.

“FBI investigates possible water supply threat in Wichita, Kansas,” by Alice Mannette for Reuters, October 18 (thanks to Lookmann):

(Reuters) – The FBI is investigating possible threats to the water supply systems in Wichita, Kansas, and several other Midwestern cities that are as yet unsubstantiated, a spokeswoman said on Friday.The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation learned of the threats in the past two days and has contacted the water supply facilities and law enforcement offices for the municipalities, said Bridget Patton, a spokeswoman for the FBI office in Kansas City, Missouri.

Patton declined to discuss the nature of the threats or the number of cities affected. She said investigators had been sent out in response to the reports, but offered no details.

“We were made aware of the threat,” Patton said. “We have not been able to substantiate any of the threats.”

Wichita city officials warned employees in emails to be on guard for suspicious activities. City officials also told residents the water is safe to drink and the public will be notified immediately if this changes..

To make matters worse for Oklahoma residents and business owners who have been displaced by recent tornadoes, looters are now taking advantage of the situation, stealing items ranging from copper wire to jewelry.

Moore police spokesman Jeremy Lewis and Mayor Glenn Lewis said 17 arrests have been made on misdemeanor charges of looting in Moore since the May 20 EF5 tornado hit, according to Reuters.

“We are seeing people take everything from copper to pipes to scrap metal to all kinds of electronics,” Lewis said. “It’s a misdemeanor crime and not a crime we usually have to deal with.”

Jon Fisher‘s home was flattened in the May 20 storm that killed 24 people and his neighborhood has been among those targeted by looters, mostly homes on the edge of damaged areas.

“The houses are still standing and looters are kicking in doors and taking TVs and appliances,” Fisher said. “They arrested two guys in my neighborhood the night of the tornado who were carrying out a love seat and couch.”

Fisher said his insurance company told him to remove all valuables from his house as fast as possible, particularly items with sentimental value or those not easily replaced.

Moore police also dealt with looters after another massive EF5 tornado struck the city in 1999.

In May, police immediately set up positions and checked identification of people trying to enter locked-down tornado-damaged areas. The Oklahoma Insurance Commission also issued badges to assessors and workers to make them easily identified when working in damaged neighborhoods.

Three Virginia men – Steven Corky Daniels, 36; Steve Costello, 44 and Justin Wagner, 25 – were among those arrested for looting copper wire and scrap metal in Moore.

The aftermath of the tornado that claimed 24 lives in Moore, Oklahoma helps show the inspiring character of its residents. NBC’s Charles Hadlock reports.

Maria Lopez, 30, of Norman, Oklahoma, was charged with disturbing a disaster area on May 30 in Moore after neighbors reported seeing her and her children sort through rubble.

Alleged looters closer to home were also arrested. Moore Police arrested Moore resident Edward Dean McDonald on May 29 on misdemeanor looting charges.

Shawnee police said they have made no looting arrests since a tornado struck that town on May 19.

On May 31, a second EF5 tornado near El Reno, Oklahoma, and severe storms left 21 people dead.

Moore City Manager Steve Eddy said crime is not as widespread as some may think.

“We learned from the first tornado, and we have officers in that area 24/7. We have no tolerance for it. We’re not going to shoot them on sight or anything, but we will arrest anyone suspected of it,” Eddy said.

The two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings were not licensed to have the firearms they used in several shootouts with police on Friday, Reutersreported Sunday night.

The news that the suspects were not authorized to own firearms will likely add fuel to calls for tougher gun laws – an issue that was put on the back-burner last week after the Senate blocked the central elements of a gun-control package backed by President Obama.

Because Massachusetts state law bars handgun ownership for those younger than 21, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, age 26, was the only brother who could have obtained a license from the town of Cambridge, Mass., where he lived. But he didn’t take that step, Dan Riviello, spokesman for the Cambridge Police Department, told Reuters.

“There is no record of him having a license to carry,” Riviello said, according to the news service.

Massachusetts state law allows residents under 21 to have rifles, but only those weapons holding 10 rounds of ammunition or less, and only then if the holder has a police-issued ID card.

Several local jurisdictions where the younger brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, has lived and studied told Reuters they have no record of issuing him such a card.

Police say Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev went on a deadly shooting spree Thursday and Friday, killing a university policeman before confronting local officers in a wild firefight in the middle of a Watertown, Mass., street that left the elder brother dead and a transit policeman injured.

In between those two attacks, the brothers allegedly carjacked a motorist at gunpoint, later releasing the unnamed victim unharmed.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev then led law enforcers on an exhaustive manhunt, which ended in his capture Friday night after yet another dramatic shootout with police.

He remains in a Boston hospital in serious but stable condition, according to the head of the Boston police, recovering from injuries that may include a self-induced gunshot wound to his neck.

(Reuters) – Cyprus was working on a last-minute proposal to soften the impact on smaller savers of a bank deposit levy after a parliamentary vote on the measure central to a bailout was postponed until Monday, a government source said.

In a radical departure from previous aid packages, euro zone finance ministers want Cyprus savers to forfeit a portion of their deposits in return for a 10 billion euro ($13 billion) bailout for the island, which has been financially crippled by its exposure to neighboring Greece.

The decision, announced on Saturday morning, stunned Cypriots and caused a run on cash points, most of which were depleted within hours. Electronic transfers were stopped.

The originally proposed levies on deposits are 9.9 percent for those exceeding 100,000 euros and 6.7 percent on anything below that.

The Cypriot government on Sunday discussed with lenders the possibility of changing the levy to 3.0 percent for deposits below 100,000 euros, and to 12.5 percent for above that sum, a source close to the consultations told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The source said the discussions had the “blessing” of a troika of lenders from the European Commission, the IMF and the European Central Bank.

In Brussels, a spokesman for Olli Rehn, the European commissioner in charge of economic affairs, said discussions were still under way in Cyprus.

“If the Cypriot leaders agree on a more progressive scale for the one-off levy, in view of making it fairer for smaller savers and provided this would have the same financial impact, the Commission would be ready to recommend that the Eurogroup endorse such an agreement,” the spokesman said.

The move to take a percentage of deposits, which could raise almost 6 billion euros, must be ratified by parliament, where no party has a majority. If it fails to do so, President Nicos Anastasiades has warned, Cyprus’s two largest banks will collapse.

One bank, the Cyprus Popular Bank, could have its emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) funding from the European Central Bank cut by March 21.

A default in Cyprus could unravel investor confidence in the euro zone, undoing the improvements fostered by the European Central Bank’s promise last year to do whatever it takes to shore up the currency bloc.

A meeting of parliament scheduled for Sunday was postponed for a day to give more time for consultations and broker a deal, political sources said. The levy was scheduled to come into force on Tuesday, after a bank holiday on Monday.

BREAKS A TABOO

Making bank depositors bear some of the costs of a bailout had been taboo in Europe, but euro zone officials said it was the only way to salvage Cyprus’s financial sector.

European officials said it would not set a precedent.

In Spain, one of four other states getting euro zone help and seen as a possible candidate for a sovereign rescue, officials were quick to say Cyprus was a unique case. A Bank of Spain spokesman said there had been no sign of deposit flight.

“We must all together raise a shield to protect the peoples (of Europe) from Ms Merkel’s criminal strategy,” said Tsipras, who wants a pan-European debt conference to forgive debt.

The crisis is unprecedented in the history of the Mediterranean island, which suffered a war and ethnic split in 1974 in which a quarter of its population was internally displaced.

Anastasiades, elected only three weeks ago, said savers will be compensated by shares in banks guaranteed by future natural gas revenues.

Cyprus is expecting the results of an offshore appraisal drilling this year to confirm the island is sitting on vast amounts of natural gas worth billions.

In a televised address to the nation on Sunday, Anastasiades said he had to accept the tax in return for international aid, or else the island would have faced bankruptcy.

“The solution we concluded upon is not what we wanted, but is the least painful under the circumstances,” Anastasiades said.

With a gross domestic product of barely 0.2 percent of the bloc’s overall output, Cyprus applied for financial aid last June, but negotiations were stalled by the complexity of the deal and the reluctance of the island’s previous president to sign.

International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde, who attended the meeting, said she backed the deal and would ask the IMF board in Washington to contribute to the bailout.

RUSSIANS, EUROPEANS

According to a draft copy of legislation, failing to pay up would be a criminal offence liable to three years in jail or a 50,000 euro fine.

Those affected will include rich Russians with deposits in Cyprus and Europeans who have retired to the island, as well as Cypriots themselves.

“I’m furious,” said Chris Drake, a former Middle East correspondent for the BBC who lives in Cyprus. “There were plenty of opportunities to take our money out; we didn’t because we were promised it was a red line which would not be crossed.”

“I’ve lost several thousand,” he told Reuters.

British finance minister George Osborne told the BBC on Sunday that Britain would compensate its 3,500 military personnel based in Cyprus.

Anastasiades’ right-wing Democratic Rally party, with 20 seats in the 56-member parliament, needs the support of other factions for the vote to pass. It was unclear whether even his coalition partners, the Democratic Party, would fully support the levy.

Cyprus’s Communist party AKEL, accused of stalling on a bailout during its tenure in power until the end of February, would vote against the measure. The socialist Edek party called EU demands “absurd”.

“This is unacceptably unfair and we are against it,” said Adonis Yiangou of the Greens Party, the smallest in parliament but a potential swing vote.

Many Cypriots, having contributed to bailouts for Ireland, Portugal and Greece – Greece’s second bailout contributed to a debt restructuring that blew the 4.5 billion euro hole in Cyprus’s banking sector – are aghast at their treatment by Europe.

Cyprus received a “stab in the back” from its EU partners, the daily Phileleftheros said.

But it and another newspapers highlighted the danger of plunging the banking system into further turmoil if lawmakers sat on the fence.

“Even if the final agreement is wrong, if this is not approved by parliament the damage will be even greater,” Politis economics editor Demetris Georgiades said in an editorial.

A Kuwaiti man has been sentenced to 5 years for insulting the nation’s ruler on Sunday.

Mohammad Eid al-Jamie was given the maximum possible sentence for posting insulting comments on Twitter for criticizing the nation’s ruler, who is described as “immune and inviolable” in the constitution.

Attorney Mohammad al-Humaidi, director of the Kuwait Society for Human Rights, has said, “We call on the government to expand freedoms and adhere to the international (human rights) conventions it has signed,” according to Reuters.

Amnesty International has immediately spoken out against the ruling saying that the nation was clamping down on freedom of expression and assembly. It called for wider protections to be given for social media users in the country, and urged for people to be allowed to support or criticize the government if they wanted to, as long as they did not incite hatred or violence.

The practice of punishing people for social media postings has become more common in the country over recent years. In January, a Kuwaiti court sentenced two men in separate cases to jail for insulting the ruler on Twitter.

Last year in June, in another case a man was sentenced to 10 years in prison after he was charged with endangering state security by insulting the Prophet Mohammad on social media.